October 04, 2012

In this video, I lay out five simple steps that will guide you from doing something, to making a clear, concise video teaching others how to do that very thing. It’s fun, it’s easy, and you’ll go to sleep at night with a vague sense of accomplishment.

Before you start stressing out about what to do, remember that your video can be about anything. There are no right things, only things. Possible topics include:

January 04, 2012

Over the long New Years weekend I slapped together all of the video footage that I'd taken with my iPhone over the previous year. I somehow ended up making a real-deal experimental film with close-up footage of insects and long shots of escalators. My friend Carl W was kind enough to help with an original soundtrack. Without music, this would be tough to watch.

January 03, 2012

My friend Jake and I were recently heading back to San Francisco from a party in Oakland. Jake was traveling with a bicycle and I wasn’t and we went back and forth for a long time trying to figure out how the 12-block trip to the train station was going to work. Was there a way to share the bike? Perhaps I could I sit on Jake’s shoulders, chicken-fighting-style, while he pedaled? We only had one helmet between us, “but don’t worry”, I said, “My thighs will be your helmet.” It made a lot of sense, but we were tired and couldn’t figure out how to make it work. We ended up walking the entire way.

In the days following, we couldn’t stop thinking about our failure. We knew there must be a way for two friends to safely share a bike. The following series of sketches explore solutions to this problem.

In the first set, Jake provides a classic template for riding on your friend’s shoulders. The top rider keeps the hands up as a sign of success.

You’ll notice that no one gets hurt in a crash because the top rider has a helmet and the bottom rider has thighs protecting their head.

Very nice!

In the next set of sketches, I expand on Jake’s template by adding some different styles of handgrips and footholds.

We’re so close to figuring this out! If anyone out there has other ideas, please send in your sketches. Who knows where this is going? We might set up a My Thighs Will Be Your Helmet shop on Etsy and sell t-shirts and handbags.

UPDATE: A few people have mentioned the phrase “my thighs will be your helmet” has sexual undertones. Seriously? I don’t know how I could be any more explicit that this is about friends sharing a bike in a safe manner. Get your mind out of the gutter.